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Bomber Disarmament

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Jeremy J. Stone
Jeremy J. Stone
Affiliation:
Stanford University
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Extract

This article deals with bomber disarmament as a partial measure which might be agreed upon by the two major powers in the absence of more general progress toward disarmament. However, much of it is relevant to the suggestion that bomber disarmament be linked to the U.S. proposal for a freeze on procurement of strategic weapons. The relationship between a strategic freeze and bomber disarmament is very close.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , October 1964 , pp. 13 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1964

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References

1 Since a major Soviet objection to the U.S. proposal for a freeze is its failure to provide for some physical disarmament, the destruction of bombers would encourage Soviet acceptance of the freeze. Such Soviet acceptance is probably necessary to gain U.S. participation in bomber disarmament, inasmuch as growing Soviet missile forces during bomber disarmament would make a separate agreement on bombers considerably more difficult politically and in other ways. If the Soviet Union did accept the freeze proposal, bomber disarmament would be very likely to follow, since one-for-one replacement of obsolescent bombers is not very practical, especially in the United States, after production lines have been closed down.

2 Foster, William C., Director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and Secretary of State Rusk broached this possibility informally to Soviet officials on the occasion of the signing of the test ban in Moscow (New York Times, January 29, 1964).Google Scholar

3 The Soviet proposal was contained in a memorandum presented to the Eighteen-Nation Disarmament Conference on January 28, 1964 (ibid.). The Soviet Union has since suggested that there is a possibility of “agreeing to start with the major powers” (ibid., April 3, 1964), has promised to be “flexible” in negotiating, and has indicated that it will come forward with a series of proposals (ibid., June 20, 1964).

4 U.S. Senate, Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, Department of Defense Appropriations for 1964, 88th Congress, 1st Session, 1963, 191–93.Google Scholar It will cost “less than $3 or 3 1/2 million per plane,” according to Dr. Harold Brown, Director of Defense Research and Engineering (U.S. Senate, Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, Department of Defense Appropriations for 1963, 87th Congress, 2nd Session, 1962, 977).Google Scholar

5 For instance, Dr. Harold Brown testified: “In the case of tactical aircraft, Senator Thurmond, I think that the need will continue, so far or as far forward as I can see, 10 years, 20 years, indefinitely.

“For strategic aircraft it is harder to say. I am pretty sure the strategic aircraft will be important and useful as bombardment vehicles for at least another 5 years. They may be important for another 10 years, but I am not sure about what happens then or after then.” (U.S. Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Military Procurement Authorization, Fiscal Year 1964, 88th Congress, 1st Session, 1963, 475.)Google Scholar

6 This information is taken from Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance, 1963–1964 (London 1963)Google Scholar; International Aerospace Specification Tables, issued by Aviation Week & Space Technology (New York 1963)Google Scholar; Baldwin, Hanson W., “Strategic Air Outlook,” New York Times, November 21, 1963Google Scholar; and U.S. Senate, Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, Department of Defense Appropriations for 1962, 87th Congress, 1st Session, 1961, 862–63.Google Scholar

7 U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, Department of Defense Appropriations for 1960, Part 1, 86th Congress, 1st Session, 1959, 800.Google Scholar

8 U.S. Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Military Procurement Authorization, Fiscal Year 1963, 87th Congress, 2nd Session, 1962, 47.Google Scholar

9 For instance, the Air Force Chief of Staff was asked how long the B-58's and B-52's could be kept in operation. He replied: “This is very difficult to answer. … everyone assumes that these airplanes are going to go on indefinitely, that we will be able to fly them indefinitely. This may not be the case. They may wear out sooner than we think they are going to wear out.

“There is a lot that we don't know about fatigue in these modern high-performance airplanes. So this bothers me, that we may have to discard these airplanes sooner than we think.” (Senate, Defense Appropriations for 1964, 356.)

10 Statement of Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara before the House Armed Services Committee on the Fiscal Year 1965–1969 Defense Program and 1965 Defense Budget, January 27, 1964, 33. (Cited hereafter as McNamara Statement.)

11 See Military Procurement, 1964, 47; and, for a recent reaffirmation of the policy, McNamara Statement, 33.

12 U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, Department of Defense Appropriations for 1964, Part 1, 88th Congress, 1st Session, 1963, 246.Google Scholar

13 For instance, in 1956, four years after the first procurement of B-47's, they had an in-commission rate of only 65 per cent (U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on the Air Force of the Committee on Armed Services, Air Power, Part 11, 84th Congress, 2nd Session, 1956, 83).Google Scholar

14 Military Procurement, 1964, 96.

15 U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, Department of Defense Appropriations for 1962, Part V, 87th Congress, 1st Session, 1961, 467–69.Google Scholar

16 Ibid., Part V, 465, and Part VI, 192.

17 House, Defense Appropriations for 1960, Part 1, 330–31.

18 Secretary of the Air Force Zuckert testified: “We believe that as the General [LeMay] has pointed out, that our proper strategic posture demands some kind of a manned system because of the flexibility it gives you. If the B-70 proves to be a blind alley for any reason we have to explore all the other methods because we have to come up with a manned system, in our opinion.” He then referred to the B-70 (2,000-mph supersonic bomber devoted to reconnaissance), Dromedary (a long-endurance, large, slow airplane designed to fly up to 48 hours, but not to penetrate defenses at all), and a low-altitude penetrator. (House, Defense Appropriations for 1964, Part 11, 530–31.)

19 Kahn, Herman, On Thermonuclear War (Princeton 1960), 373.Google Scholar

20 McNamara Statement, 33.

21 Military Procurement, 1963, 64–65.

22 Had heavy bombers been absent from the U.S. force, the strategic concern over Soviet missiles in Cuba would have been diminished, since the missiles would have had no highly profitable targets. This indicates one of the ways in which bomber disarmament will have a stabilizing effect.

23 Secretary McNamara believes that “toward the latter part of this decade, we must anticipate that submarine-launched missiles or others coming with very little, if any, warning will very probably destroy the majority of aircraft on the ground” (Senate, Defense Appropriations for 1964, 191).

24 McNamara Statement, 33. The Air Force had asked for one-fourth (U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, Department of Defense Appropriations for 1961, Part VII, 86th Congress, 2nd Session, 1960, 100).Google Scholar

25 Baldwin, , “Strategic Air Outlook,” New York Times, November 21, 1963.Google Scholar Such dispersal plans were described to Congress as far back as 1956:

Colonel Nichols. Now we have a dispersal plan in SAC. It works like this: Each one of our bases, let's take the base at Fairchild, we have two wings there, each wing will have a plan and the plan will have the aircraft say take off from Fairchild and come down to these green areas. They are what we call orbit areas.

At that position the aircraft will circle. He will await then instructions from his home base if it is not destroyed or from another source if his home base is destroyed, and then he will either land at what we call our dispersal base or go back to Fairchild, depending on what he is told. (Senate, Air Power, Part II, 146.)

26 For instance, consider the present situation. In 1960, General Preston testified that SAC's ultimate goal was one squadron (i.e., one-third of a wing of 45 bombers) of B-52's per base and one wing of B-47's per base. Since there are about 15 wings of B-47's remaining (the 700 planes noted earlier), 42 squadrons of B-52's (the 14 wings noted earlier), and about 6 squadrons of B-58's (the 80 planes noted earlier), this would require 63 bases. Since 68 are referred to above, this goal has evidently been effectively achieved. Nevertheless, the “bonus” to enemy attack that catches the bombers on their bases would be somewhere between 15–1 (heavy-bomber bases) and 45–1 (medium-bomber bases), even assuming that the bombers carry no larger weapons than the single enemy H-bomb that Secretary McNamara indicated would destroy every bomber on its base (McNamara Statement, 37). With 100 fields, the average bonus would be at least 14–1, since there are about 1,400 bombers.

27 Mr. Ford. Somewhere in your testimony you indicate that we have sufficient strategic striking forces to destroy the Soviet Union. This is what I am talking about. …

Secretary McNamara. What percentage of that force are the weapons that will be carried by the bombers? I would say a very, very, very, [sic] low percentage, for this reason.

Off the record.

(Statement off the record.)

Mr. Ford. I am talking about 1968.

Secretary McNamara. Yes. The point I want to make is that the percentage of total warheads in our inventory carried by the bombers is a rather meaningless figure. I think the percentage to which you are now directing your attention is exactly the right percentage. What percentage of the force that destroys the Soviet Union is delivered by bombers? The answer to that is a very, very, low percentage. …

Mr. Ford. If that is the case … why do you keep bombers in the force at all until 1968?

Secretary McNamara. Because they add some insurance and because certain targets may be more effectively destroyed by bombs assuming the bomber can get there before tne targets have been launched against the Uhited'states, and that is quite an assumption [emphasis added]. (House, Defense Appropriations for 1964, Part 1, 318.)

28 McNamara Statement, 37. Bombers were also rated lower in “system dependability,” by which was evidently meant that the uncertainties associated with them were harder to estimate. In conclusion, the Secretary of Defense noted that “we can predict the results of a missile attack with greater confidence than those of a bomber attack” (ibid. 38).

29 Secretary McNamara. … we will be in serious difficulty by the end of the decade if at that point our strategic force is dependent upon free-fall bombs as the primary weapon of attack, because no one in responsible position at the Pentagon that I am aware of believes that free-fall bombs can be placed over the prime targets in the Soviet Union at the end of this decade.

Senator Stennis. Why?

Secretary McNamara. Because by that time the air defense systems of the Soviet Union will be such as to make it nearly impossible for an airplane to advance to a position to launch free-fall bombs against that target. (Military Procurement, 1963, 93.)

30 House, Defense Appropriations for 1964, Part 1, 114.

31 U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, Department of Defense Appropriations for 1963, Part 11, 87th Congress, 2nd Session, 1962, 15.Google Scholar

32 House, Defense Appropriations for 1960, Part II, 378.

33 This comment of the Secretary of Defense was reinforced by the assertion: “There is no plan in the Air Force that I know of, or no thought of any plan to substitute air launch for sea and land launch for the great bulk of the megatonnage” (Senate, Defense Appropriations for 1964, 192).

34 Butz, J. S., “The Future of Manned Bombers,” Air Force/Space Digest (March 1963), 29.Google Scholar

35 Senator Cannon. When we get to the point that we are practically phased out with our manned bombers under our present program we would have no method of making a visible display of strength insofar as SAC's posture is concerned, would we?

General LcMay. With missiles you cannot do anything except to say, “I will shoot my missiles,” that is all.

Senator Cannon. You cannot very well take a picture of a man with his thumb about 6 inches above the trigger and say, “He is going to put it on down if you don't do such and such.” That doesn't give you much of a bargaining point, does it?

General LeMay. That is correct. (Military Procurement, 1964, 932.)

36 Ibid., 85.

37 Khrushchev, Nikita S., “The Present International Situation and the Foreign Policy of the Soviet Union,” report at session of USSR Supreme Soviet, December 12, 1962; quoted from Current Digest of the Soviet Press, XIV, No. 51, January 16, 1963, 5.Google Scholar

38 New York Times, May 17, 1960.

39 Speier, Hans, Divided Berlin (New York 1961), 109.Google Scholar

40 Congressman Mahon described a situation in which war occurred after the bombers were approaching their targets and suggested that “… probably the missile would hit its target before the bomber.” General LeMay replied: “Under most circumstances, yes.” (House, Defense Appropriations for 1964, Part 11, 527.)

41 “Thus, ‘damage-limiting’ strategy appears to be the most practical and effective course for us to follow. Such a strategy requires a force considerably larger than would be needed for a limited ‘cities only’ strategy. While there are still some differences of judgment on just how large such a force should be, there is general agreement that it should be large enough to ensure the destruction, singly or in combination, of the Soviet Union, Communist China, and the Communist satellites as national societies, under the worst possible circumstances of war outbreak that can reasonably be postulated, and, in addition, to destroy their warmaking capability so as to limit, to the extent practicable, damage to this country and to our Allies.” (McNamara Statement, 32.)

42 In another article, the author intends to trace the course of U.S. doctrines and show that this strategy is one of a sequence of successively weaker justifications for large U.S. strategic forces. These reasons have become weaker in direct proportion to Soviet second-strike capabilities and can be expected to continue to do so. At what point existing or planned forces will, or have, become unjustifiably large will be discussed.

43 McNamara Statement, 33.

44 Alsop, Stewart, “Our New Strategy: The Alternatives to Total War,” Saturday Evening Post, December 1, 1962, 18.Google Scholar

45 See Secretary McNamara's Ann Arbor speech, New York Times, June 17, 1962.

46 “… I do not believe it is proper to infer … that I am sponsoring for all time a mix that includes missiles and manned bombers launching gravity bombs. Rather, I am talking about a mix of systems. It could be a mix of missile systems. As a matter of fact, I believe it will have to be a mix of missile systems under any circumstances, each system with characteristics different from the other systems and therefore adding in total to the problem of the defense.” (House, Defense Appropriations for 1964, Part 1, 317.) Elsewhere he remarked: “No other airborne vehicle that I have heard described for us in the 1970's depends on anything other than a missile for its striking power. So it seems to me that all of the technical developments point to the use of missiles, and it is simply a question of what kind of missile and how many and where they should be located.” (Military Procurement, 1964, 77.)

47 See Raymond, Jack, “New Strategic Bomber Gains Favor in Pentagon,” New York Times, December 26, 1963.Google Scholar The new strategic bomber referred to is a low-level penetrator, but it developed in a later column that the “favor” which it had gained was simply a $5,000,000 research contract. This plane is apparently the LAMP (Low Altitude Manned Penetration aircraft), designed to fly at supersonic speed a few hundred feet off the ground below the beams of defensive radar. (Baldwin, “Strategic Air Outlook,” New York Times, November 21, 1963.)

48 lbid.

49 House, Defense Appropriations for 1964, Part 1, 115.

50 Senate, Military Procurement, 1963, 17.

51 House, Defense Appropriations for 1964, Part 11, 530.

52 Baldwin, “Strategic Air Outlook.”

53 Other administrations might well adopt a different policy. Senator Goldwater has said that one reason he is running for President is to maintain a proper “mix” of bombers and missiles (New York Times, February 7, 1964).

54 Such advances might be in variable-sweep wings, engine developments, penetration aids, and laminar-flow control. The last is a method of changing the lift/drag ratio of aircraft and permits substantial reductions in size for fixed performance. (Butz, “Future of Manned Bombers,” Air Force/Space Digest.)

55 Baldwin, Hanson W., “France's A-Bomb Deterrent Power,” New York Times, January 25, 1963.Google Scholar

56 Senate, Air Power, Part 11, 269.

57 This information is taken from Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance, 1963–1964, and International Aerospace Specification Tables (1963).

58 Senate, Defense Appropriations for 1964, 192.

59 Department of Defense Statement on U.S. Military Strength, Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs), No. 308–64, April 14, 1964.

60 The information in this paragraph comes from comments of Dinerstein, H.Goure, L., and Wolfe, T. W., in their annotation of Sokolovskii's Soviet Military Strategy, RAND Corporation translation (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1963), 351–52.Google Scholar

61 lbid., 346–47.

62 In answer to questions which seemed to reflect on Air Force capabilities by emphasizing U.S. casualties in a general war, General LeMay testified, somewhat petulantly: “I wish that there was some way, Mr. Chairman, I could guarantee fighting a war without getting anyone killed on our side. Unfortunately, I cannot do that at this time. There was a time when I was commanding SAC that I think we could have retaliated with the strength we then had and destroyed the greater part of Russia and the loss rate would have been the loss we would have suffered from the normal accident rate of that many hours' flying time. The situation no longer exists because they have built up their defenses and they have an atomic capability of their own.” (House, Defense Appropriations for 1964, Part 11, 530.)

63 U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Armed Services, Hearings on Military Posture and H.R. 9751, 87th Congress, 2nd Session, 1962, 1192.Google Scholar

64 Concern among U.S. strategists was genuine. For example, the present U.S. preponderance in strategic forces is precisely the reverse of the situation repeatedly anticipated in Herman Kahn's On Thermonuclear War. This book was written in 1959 after the author had worked for a decade at The RAND Corporation. The size of the anticipated gap was enormous. The number of Soviet missiles thought to be in existence in mid-1961 was only 3.5 per cent of the number that had been anticipated two years earlier for that same date. Bomber misjudgments were only slightly less dramatic. See Symington, Stuart, “Where the Missile Gap Went,” The Reporter, February 15, 1962.Google Scholar

65 “… the relative numbers and survivability of U.S. strategic forces would permit us to retaliate against all the urgent Soviet military targets that are subject to attack, thus contributing to the limitation of damage to ourselves and our allies. … [This] damage-limiting capability of our numerically superior forces is, I believe, well worth its incremental cost. It is a capability to which the smaller forces of the Soviet Union could not realistically aspire.” (Secretary of Defense McNamara, Robert S., remarks before the Economic Club of New York, November 18, 1963.Google Scholar)

66 Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance, 1963–1964.

67 Senate, Air Power, Part II, 255.

68 Ibid., 294. This continues to be the case. Asked what percentage of kill our antiaircraft defenses would have, the Secretary of Defense replied: “It is a very difficult question to answer but I would say this, the answer depends upon a large number of factors that are in themselves unknown” (House, Defense Appropriations for 1963, Part 11, 250).

69 Herman Kahn suggested in 1960: “One way not to make a reputation as an analyst in the last five or ten years would have been to find a hole in our air defense system … people mostly think of it as being full of holes” (Kahn, 345).

70 Senate, Air Power, Part 11, 332–33.

71 For instance, in discussing interceptors, Secretary McNamara stated: “We still plan to retain the existing interceptor aircraft in the force, but the number of aircraft will decline gradually because of attrition. We believe that this force will be adequate against what we presently foresee as a declining Soviet-manned bomber threat. However, if the Soviets should deploy a new long-range bomber, we would have to reconsider the size and character of our interceptor force and particularly the need for modernization.” (Senate, Military Procurement, 1964, 47.) A somewhat more detailed statement is made by Dr. Harold Brown in Senate, Defense Appropriations for 1964, 1243.

72 McNamara Statement, 44–45.

73 Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance, 1963–1964.

74 Aviation Week & Space Technology, January 14, 1963, 30. The planes are to be based in southwestern France, and some will be kept on air alert. The French argue specifically that an attacking Mirage IV will be detected by radar at a distance of only one and a half miles—the plane will be some 100 to 300 yards above the ground—and that at 1,500 miles per hour a SAM-III battery will have just one, quite inadequate, second to fire at it. Other penetration aids are also envisaged. (Root, W., “France Expects A-Bomb Readiness Against an Enemy by the End of the Year,” Washington Post, January 23, 1963.Google Scholar)

75 Baldwin, , “France's A-Bomb Deterrent Power,” New York Times, January 25, 1963.Google Scholar

76 But it is worth noting that the Mirage IV is a small, 66,000-lb. bomber and would not be of the size being dismantled unless and until the United States and the Soviet Union discussed tactical bomber disarmament.

77 The designation “long-range” is used in a technical sense, defined in the 1958 Surprise Attack Conference at Geneva. It refers to aircraft with a radius of action of over 2,000 nautical miles (n.m.), and would include at least B-52's, Bisons, and Bears. Badgers and B-47's would be medium-range aircraft—those defined as having a radius of action of from 750 to 2,000 n.m. It is not clear whether B-58's and Blinders are medium- or long-range. (Documents on Disarmament, 1945–1959, Vol. 11: 1957–1959, Department of State Publication 7008, August 1960, 1230–43.Google Scholar)

78 I agree, in general, with P. M. S. Blackett's statement: “To justify the labor of negotiating any agreed reduction and to offset the undoubted strains and disputes that will inevitably arise from the operation of any inspection and control system, the negotiated reduction must be a major one; in fact, of such magnitude as to change qualitatively the nature of the relative nuclear postures of the two giant powers.” (“Steps Toward Disarmament,” Scientific American, CCVI [April 1962].)

79 New York Times, August 21, 1963. The Deputy Secretary of Defense in a “safeguards” communication drew together the commitments made by the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, by the Secretary of Defense, and by the President Among these four, and given first, was: “Safeguard (a). ‘The conduct of comprehensive, aggressive, and continuing underground nuclear test programs designed to add to our knowledge and improve our weapons in all areas of significance to our military posture for the future.’” (Letter to Hon. Richard B. Russell, Chairman, Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate, August 23, 1963, from Roswell Gilpatric, in U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, 88th Congress, 1st Session, 1963, 978.Google Scholar)

80 For instance, he suggested that Skybolt would have cost “nearly $3 billion,” that “incremental initial investment cost for a Minuteman missile, complete with its blast resistant silo,” was “very close” to $4 million, and that a substitution of Minuteman for Skybolt would save about $2 billion. This suggests that about 250 Minutemen were to be procured for this purpose. (House, Military Posture and H.R. 9751, 35.)

81 McNamara Statement, 36.

82 Ibid., 33.

83 According to General Power: “… For example, in one weapon system, say a B-52 out of New Mexico going against the Soviet Union, if your realistic war games are thorough, you have a 50% confidence factor for destroying that target with a given weapon” (Aviation Week, September 23, 1963, 39).

84 The maintenance and operation of the B-52 cost $820 million each year (Senate, Military Procurement, 1964). Phasing it out steadily over three years instead of keeping all B-52's until 1969 (as the present program anticipates) would save $2.8 billion. The cost of modifying the fleet would also be saved—this is $306 million for fiscal 1965 (McNamara Statement, 33).

85 See New York Times, August 18, 1964, 1 (picture).

86 Statement of Secretary McNamara before Economic Club; Senate, Military Procurement, 1964, 125 and 147.

87 The United States can be encouraged to procure additional missiles even with its present large superiority. For instance, Secretary McNamara's testimony includes the paragraph: “We have tentatively programmed the funding of additional Minuteman silos after fiscal year 1965, but the actual number to be started will depend upon the situation prevailing a year or two years from now” (Statement, 35).

88 It would also effectively comply with the Soviet draft resolution introduced in the Security Council on April 21, 1958, that called upon the United States “to refrain from sending its military aircraft carrying atomic and hydrogen bombs toward the frontiers of other states for the purpose of creating a threat to their security or staging military demonstrations” (Documents on Disarmament, 1945–1959, 11, 990).

89 Military Procurement, 1964, 47.

90 U.S. B-47's have already been sold to Australia (Aviation Week, December 23, 1963).